{
 "id": "edward-thomas/the-other",
 "title": "The Other",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 62,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1918,
  "venue": "Last Poems (1918)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edward-thomas_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Collected_Poems/LMsEAQAAIAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Two_Poems/3ycPAAAAQAAJ"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 110,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The forest ended. Glad I was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To feel the light, and hear the hum",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of bees, and smell the drying grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sweet mint, because I had come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To an end of forest, and because",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here was both road and inn, the sum",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what’s not forest. But ’twas here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They asked me if I did not pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yesterday this way? “Not you? Queer.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Who then? and slept here?” I felt fear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I learnt his road and, ere they were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sure I was I, left the dark wood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The inn in the sun, the happy mood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When first I tasted sunlight there.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I travelled fast, in hopes I should",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Outrun that other. What to do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When caught, I planned not. I pursued",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To prove the likeness, and, if true,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To watch until myself I knew.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I tried the inns that evening",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a long gabled high-street grey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of courts and outskirts, travelling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An eager but a weary way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain. He was not there. Nothing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Told me that ever till that day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had one like me entered those doors,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save once. That time I dared: “You may",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Recall”⁠—but never-foamless shores",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make better friends than those dull boors.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Many and many a day like this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aimed at the unseen moving goal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing found but remedies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all desire. These made not whole;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They sowed a new desire, to kiss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Desire’s self beyond control,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Desire of desire. And yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life stayed on within my soul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One night in sheltering from the wet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I quite forgot I could forget.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A customer, then the landlady",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stared at me. With a kind of smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They hesitated awkwardly:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their silence gave me time for guile.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had anyone called there like me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I asked. It was quite plain the wile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Succeeded. For they poured out all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that was naught. Less than a mile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the inn, I could recall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He was like me in general.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He had pleased them, but I less.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was more eager than before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find him out and to confess,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bore him and to let him bore.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could not wait: children might guess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I had a purpose, something more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That made an answer indiscreet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One girl’s caution made me sore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too indignant even to greet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That other had we chanced to meet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I sought then in solitude.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind had fallen with the night; as still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The roads lay as the ploughland rude,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dark and naked, on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had there been ever any feud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dark house, dark impossible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held on an everlasting lease:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No difference endured between",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A marshbird whistled high unseen;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The latest waking blackbird’s cries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perished upon the silence keen.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last light filled a narrow firth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the clouds. I stood serene,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with a solemn quiet mirth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An old inhabitant of earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once the name I gave to hours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like this was melancholy, when",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was not happiness and powers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coming like exiles home again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And weaknesses quitting their bowers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moments of everlastingness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fortunate my search was then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While what I sought, nevertheless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I was seeking, I did not guess.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That time was brief: once more at inn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And upon road I sought my man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till once amid a tap-room’s din",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loudly he asked for me, began",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To speak, as if it had been a sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of how I thought and dreamed and ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After him thus, day after day:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He lived as one under a ban",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For this: what had I got to say?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I said nothing, I slipped away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now I dare not follow after",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too close. I try to keep in sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I steal out of the wood to light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see the swift shoot from the rafter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the inn door: ere I alight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wait and hear the starlings wheeze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He goes: I follow: no release",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}